The Competitive Corner provides the best and most detailed analysis of vendor ratings in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant (MQ) for Backup and Data Protection Platforms that we have encountered.
We covered this MQ in a storage ticker on June 30, noting Druva got promoted from Visionary to Leader, Huawei entered as a Challenger, the separate Cohesity and Veritas entries have been combined, and Microsoft exits as a Niche Player. Otherwise it was pretty stable with small vendor position changes. Competitive Corner analyst Matt Tyrer applied his microscope to the MQ, plotting the changes in detail, looking at why they took place, and comparing the positioned vendors to a depth we have not seen before.
Tyrer is an ex-head of competitive intelligence at Druva and Commvault.
He notes: “We did see some significant changes in the Leaders quadrant. First off, Druva makes their debut as Leader this year – making them the only 100 percent SaaS platform in the Leaders quadrant and first new entrant to that space since 2020. Veritas is no longer separately listed now that their acquisition by Cohesity is complete, and Dell Technologies continues their inexorable slide out of the Leaders space – something I’m expecting to see in the 2026 MQ.”
Tyrer comments: “Technically, Veeam barely holds onto their position as ‘Highest in Ability to Execute’ (by a sliver) and Rubrik stays just ahead of Cohesity to be a repeat ‘Furthest in Vision.’ We’ll explore why in the next section when we delve into each Leader in more detail.”
“Outside of the Leaders there were a few things of note. As previously mentioned, Microsoft dropped out of the Magic Quadrant this year after a brief appearance in last year’s report. Huawei is the only new vendor this year, serving as the only representative in the Challenger’s space. HYCU lost some ground in terms of Vision, while Arcserve gained position on that axis. Lastly, IBM slightly moved closer to that Leader space.”
Tyrer looks at the leader vendors in some detail and issues verdicts:
- Cohesity: With the addition of NetBackup, Cohesity’s workload support across the board is unmatched. Only Commvault can compare to the sheer diversity of workloads and data sources that Cohesity can protect. While there is indeed some expected chaos associated with the Cohesity + Veritas post-merger initiatives, those won’t be a distraction for long and Cohesity has the very real potential to be THE platform to beat in the enterprise with their combined technology stack – if executed properly.
- Commvault has expanded their portfolio faster than ever over the past 12 months, which has introduced the previously mentioned challenges around complexity and usability, but those are issues Commvault has successfully addressed in the past and can likely correct moving forward. Despite these concerns, they remain one of the most feature-rich technology stacks in the industry and can address many use cases and data sources others cannot.
- For customers that are invested in the broader Dell technology portfolio, the Dell data protection suite (DPS) should be adequate for their needs. The solutions are proven, but do lag behind the market leaders in terms of innovation and features. Customers with mixed heterogeneous vendor environments, particularly those with investments in cloud, will need to properly evaluate which of the many Dell solutions they will need to deploy – Dell PowerProtect Backup Service (OEM’d from Druva) is by far the best option for those types of Dell customers needing on-prem, hybrid, cloud, and SaaS workload coverage.
- Druva’s SaaS solution delivers an easy to deploy, simple to manage solution that truly hits the “secure by design” cyber security goals by not having any infrastructure for bad actors to directly attack – something customers would otherwise have to design/architect themselves if using competing solutions in the MQ. This is a great fit for security-minded customers and those investing into hybrid and cloud.
- Rubrik’s portfolio continued to grow, and with a pivot back to more of a data protection focus they appear to be finding balance between expanding their core backup capabilities and enhancing their cyber security products. Rubrik doesn’t yet have the broad workload coverage available from Commvault or Cohesity, but it is quickly catching up. Rubrik remains simple to deploy and operate, but that simplicity also translates into Rubrik’s platform being more limited in terms of more advanced features and functionality many enterprise customers need such as in depth reporting and robust cross-platform disaster recovery.
- Veeam’s well established market presence and customer base are quick to adopt new Veeam features and products, but Veeam very often shares their footprint with other backup solutions – seeing multiple backup products on the customer floor to address different needs. The Veeam roadmap is ambitious, striving to deliver on 34 new products and enhancements, including significant expansion of their VDC offering and a new release of their core platform. So, look for Veeam to continue to impact the data protection market with a host of new capabilities over the next year.
He also has a look at Arcserve, Huawei, HYCU, and IBM, saying:
- Arcserve’s simple, turnkey UDP appliance offering is well proven in the market and a great fit for midmarket customers or enterprise customers with multiple sites they need to easily manage for protection. Their pricing is flexible and with these latest investments into their product, the Arcserve solution supported by these new resilience features is one to watch.
- Huawei is an emerging player in the enterprise market, and while their support for multi-cloud and availability is mainly limited to their own cloud they are slowly expanding. For now, it’s likely that customers that are invested in the Huawei cloud ecosystem and those with many sites in APAC will be better suited for their solution, but as workloads and geographic availability/support grow so too will their suitability for a broader market.
- HYCU’s focus on Nutanix and SaaS applications gives them a solid advantage for customers heavily invested in either. There is no other vendor close to providing the SaaS coverage available from HYCU R-Cloud. Customers with larger multi-cloud and on-prem environments may need to look at other solutions outside of HYCU to complete their backup coverage, but the differentiated approach HYCU is taking to the backup market continues to see some interesting innovations. If they continue to expand their cyber resilience features and workload support they will be moving in the right direction again on the MQ.
- IBM’s technology is proven and steadily catching up with today’s business needs for data protection. Their innovations in cyber security integrations and broad channel support make them a reliable partner for enterprises. With some cloud expansion and continued development of their first party IBM Storage Defender solution, we could see them eventually punch into the Leaders quadrant.
Tyrer’s analysis is available as a blog at his Competitive Corner website, with a 14-minute read time. We’d recommend it as the single best Gartner enterprise backup MQ analysis we have ever seen.